She looked at Frost. He shook his head. Both of them could see this was just a replay of an old tragedy they’d seen a dozen times before.
“So did she threaten divorce?” asked Ligett.
“No. Mattie didn’t know anything about her.”
“She just shows up at work and picks a fight?”
“It was stupid. I told Sarmiento all about it.”
“Why did you get mad, Dwayne?”
“Because she drives around with a goddamn flat tire and doesn’t even notice it! I mean, how dense can you be not to notice that you’re scraping your rim? The other salesman saw it. Brand-new tire, and it’s shredded, just ripped to hell. I see that and I guess I yelled at her. And she gets all teary-eyed, and that just irritates me more, because it makes me feel like a jerk.”
You are a jerk, thought Rizzoli. She looked at Sarmiento. “I think we’ve heard enough.”
“What’d I tell you?”
“You’ll let us know if anything new develops?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sarmiento’s gaze was back on Dwayne. “It’s easy when they’re this dumb.”
Rizzoli and Frost turned to leave.
“Who knows how many miles she was driving around with it like that?” Dwayne was saying. “Hell, it might already have been flat when she got to the doctor’s office.”
Rizzoli suddenly halted. Turning back to the window, she frowned at Dwayne. Felt her pulse suddenly pounding in her temple. Jesus. I almost missed it.
“Which doctor is he talking about?” she asked Sarmiento.
“A Dr. Fishman. I spoke to her yesterday.”
“Why did Mrs. Purvis see her?”
“Just a routine OB appointment, nothing unusual about it.”
Rizzoli looked at Sarmiento. “Dr. Fishman is an obstetrician?”
He nodded. “She has an office in the Women’s Clinic. Over on Bacon Street.”
Dr. Susan Fishman had been up most of the night at the hospital, and her face was a map of exhaustion. Her unwashed brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the white lab coat she wore over the rumpled scrub suit had pockets so loaded down with various examination tools that the fabric seemed to be dragging her shoulders toward the floor.
“Larry from security brought over the surveillance tapes,” she said as she escorted Rizzoli and Frost from the clinic reception desk into a rear hallway. Her tennis shoes squeaked across the linoleum. “He’s getting the video equipment set up in the back room. Thank god no one expects me to do it. I don’t even have a VCR at home.”
“Your clinic still has the recordings from a week ago?” asked Frost.
“We have a contract with Minute Man Security. They keep the tapes for at least a week. We asked them to, given all the threats.”
“What threats?”
“This is a pro-choice clinic, you know. We don’t perform any abortions on site, but just the fact we call ourselves a women’s clinic seems to tick off the right-wing crowd. We like to keep an eye on who comes into the building.”
“So you’ve had problems before?”
“What you’d expect. Threatening letters. Envelopes with fake anthrax. Assholes hanging around, taking photos of our patients. That’s why we keep that video camera in the parking lot. We want to keep an eye on everyone who comes near our front door.” She led them down another hallway, decorated with the same cheerfully generic posters that seemed to adorn every obstetrician’s office. Diagrams on breast-feeding, on maternal nutrition, on the “five danger signs that you have an abusive partner.” An anatomical illustration of a pregnant woman, the contents of her abdomen revealed in cross section. It made Rizzoli uncomfortable walking beside Frost, with that poster looming on the wall, as though her own anatomy was up there on display. Bowel, bladder, uterus. Fetus curled up in a tangle of limbs. Only last week, Matilda Purvis had walked past this very poster.
“We’re all heartsick about Mattie,” said Dr. Fishman. “She’s just the sweetest person. And she’s so thrilled about the baby.”
“At her last appointment, everything was fine?” asked Rizzoli.
“Oh, yes. Strong fetal heart tones, good position. Everything looked great.” Fishman glanced back at Rizzoli. Asked, grimly: “You think it’s the husband?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, isn’t it usually the husband? He only came in with her once, way at the beginning. Acted bored the whole visit. After that, Mattie would show up alone for her appointments. That’s the tip-off for me. If you make a baby together, you damn well ought to show up together. But that’s just my opinion.” She opened a door. “This is our conference room.”
Larry from Minute Man Security Systems was waiting in the room for them. “I’ve got that video ready to show you,” he said. “I narrowed it down to the time frame you’re interested in. Dr. Fishman, you’ll need to watch the footage. Tell us when you spot your patient on the video.”
Fishman sighed and settled into a chair in front of the monitor. “I’ve never had to look at one of these before.”
“Lucky you,” said Larry. “Most of the time they’re pretty boring.”
Rizzoli and Frost sat down on either side of Fishman. “Okay,” said Rizzoli. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Larry hit PLAY.
On the monitor, a long view of the clinic’s main entrance appeared. A bright day, sunlight glinting off a row of cars parked in front of the building.
“This camera’s mounted on top of a lamppost in the parking lot,” said Larry. “You can see the time there, at the bottom. Two oh five P.M.”
A Saab swung into view and pulled into a stall. The driver’s door opened and a tall brunette climbed out. She strolled toward the clinic and vanished inside.
“Mattie’s appointment was at one thirty,” said Dr. Fishman. “Maybe you should back up the film a little.”
“Just keep watching,” said Larry. “There. Two thirty P.M. Is that her?”
A woman had just stepped out of the building. She paused for a moment in the sunshine, and ran her hand across her eyes, as though she was dazzled by the light.
“That’s her,” said Fishman. “That’s Mattie.”
Mattie started walking away from the building now, moving in that duck waddle so characteristic of heavily pregnant women. She took her time, digging through her purse for her car keys as she walked, distracted, not paying attention. Suddenly she stopped and glanced around with a bewildered look, as though she’d forgotten where she left her car. Yes, this was a woman who might not notice that her tire was flat, thought Rizzoli. Now Mattie turned and walked in a completely different direction, vanishing from the camera’s view.
“Is that all you have?” asked Rizzoli.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” said Larry. “Confirmation of the time she left the building?”
“But where’s her car? We don’t see her getting into her car.”
“Is there some question that she didn’t?”
“I just want to see her leave the parking lot.”
Larry rose and went to the video system. “There’s one other angle I can show you, from a camera that’s way on the other side of the lot,” he said, changing the tape. “But I don’t think it helps much, because it’s so far away.” He picked up the remote and again pressed PLAY.
Another view appeared. This time only one corner of the clinic building was visible; most of the screen was filled with parked cars.
“This parking lot’s shared with the medical-surgery clinic across the way,” said Larry. “That’s why you see so many cars here. Okay, look. Isn’t that her?”
In the distance, Mattie’s head was visible as she moved along a row of cars. Now she ducked out of sight. A moment later, a blue car backed out of its stall and rolled out of the frame.